As a brand, company, or marketing team, YouTube can be a cornerstone for influencer marketing due to the long form and long lived nature of content across the social platform. YouTube has built a network of over 2.6 billion users over 18+ years, and its influencer marketing and digital marketing tools have the power to promote your product to millions of devout followers.

YouTube is the oldest social media platform that is still growing in popularity. Making the decision to partner with creators on the platform is a smart bet as video content is a key piece to gaining the attention of the next generation who relies on social media to shape their style and beliefs. YouTube partnerships may be a piece of the puzzle for your marketing mix.

In this article, we'll dive into options to find, manage, and pay your influencers. You may have just started, or maybe you’re already in the game but running into issues with scaling and finding a seamless payment process that fits into your existing ERP and accounts payable process. That's where Lumanu comes in.

Lumanu is a master vendor payment platform designed to help brands save time with vendor onboarding, compliance and hassle-free payments. But before we tell you more about our app and product, we’re sharing the overall approach of finding YouTube influencers, along with the pros and cons of some standard methods used to pay YouTube creators so you can find the right solution for your business.

Why do Brands and Agencies Work with YouTube Influencers?

Before diving into the payment methods and price tags, it is essential to understand why YouTube influencer marketing might be your best option.

YouTube videos differ in that they are typically longer videos than on TikTok or Instagram, where videos or reels are as short as a few seconds and up to about 3 minutes. This method captures an audience but doesn’t allow an ample amount of time to properly promote a product in a way you might desire for the price. YouTube has recently offered shorts as well so you can have the best of both worlds. When working with YouTube creators we definitely recommend both long and short form video.

Overall, YouTube content creators' video lengths average about 11 minutes and allow an influencer to promote your product on their YouTube channel over a much greater period of time. The typical approach is to integrate your brand into a native video that will get a large number of views, this is opposed to creating a video that is solely about your brand or product offering. Think of it as a combination of PR/ product placement and a TV commercial.

YouTube Channel Size Qualifications

How YouTube influencers get paid is partially dependent on the size of their audience base. The agreed-upon numbers of size based on followers are:

• Nano-influencers: 1,000 to 10,000  

• Micro-influencers: 10,000 to 50,000  

• Mid-tier influencers: 50,000 to 500,000  

• Macro-influencers: 500,000 to 1,000,000

• Mega-influencers: 1,000,000+

How to find YouTubers to work with

We recommend starting your search in YouTube using a keyword search to find relevant videos and the channels to collaborate with. The manual brute force is to do this in YouTube but after spending a few minutes doing it this way you'll wonder if there is a better way - good news is you can query the YouTube API via a script. I'll drop a python script at the end of this article which you can use to search for and return a list of videos based on any keyword along with view count for each video. The output can be analyzed in excel so for example, you can easily identify the top 50 videos related to your search and reach out to those creators to discuss sponsorship. To use this script, copy the script at the bottom of this article and save it as youtube_search.py and run it in your Mac terminal as follows. (If you don't know where terminal is just hit "command + space bar" and search for terminal):

python youtube_search.py --api_key YOUR_API_KEY --query "YOUR_SEARCH_KEYWORD" --max_results 50

Replace YOUR_API_KEY with your actual YouTube Data API key and YOUR_SEARCH_KEYWORD with the keyword you want to search for. The --max_results argument is optional and defaults to 50. This script will output the titles, video IDs, and descriptions of the videos that match the search query.

Types of YouTube Influencer Payments

Based on the parameters above, this will determine how you will compensate your influencers. There is a multitude of ways to pay your influencers but there is no strict guideline in which to do so. A few options are:

1. Store Credit/ Gifted Product

2. Comped Trips and Events

3. Pay Per Post (plus performance bonus). This can be on a flat fee or CPM model

4. Ad Revenue (this is a bonus the creator will make directly from YouTube)

Store Credit/ Gifted Product

This works much like gifting and tends to target smaller influencers. However, unlike paid compensation (where they must announce it on the sponsored post) store credit or gifting may not require sponsorship disclosure.

Comped Trips and Events

Another fairly inexpensive way to pay social media influencers is by creating a free environment for them to travel and network. If you’re a brand sponsoring influencers on a trip or at an event, this can give them the control and freedom to be creative with their content.

Pay Per Post (plus performance bonus)

Also referred to as “sponsored” posts, this is the most popular form of payment for social media influencers. Sponsorships of youtube videos allow for a longer period of airtime for your product than other methods such as a short ad or quick reference. There is a wide price range that depends on factors like:

• Type of content and quality

• Follower count

• Audience engagement

• Length of partnership

• Brand size or product value

Your budget will also dictate exactly what you pay an influencer per post.

Ad Activity

This will be dependent on the amount of web traffic and engagement that is delivered from your influencer’s post and will fluctuate depending on the size of your influencer’s audience. YouTube pays this to your partner directly.

How to Price a YouTube Influencer For Your Brand?

Similar to the method in which you choose to compensate your influencer, their price tag is not an exact science. When deciding which method, you must consider the path you believe is most cost-effective while also reaching the most potential customers as well as your target audience.

It is important to look at the following before setting a price point with your YouTube influencer:

• Average marketing ROI

• Previous campaign performance

• Standard rates

• Rate cards

If they demand more than you will be making from the partnership, it might not be the best fit for you.

If you are still unsure about where to put a base price, here are the average costs (per post) for YouTube influencers:

• Nano influencers: $20 to $200

• Micro-influencers: $200 to $1,000

• Mid-tier influencers: $1,000 to $10,000

• Macro-influencers: $10,000 to $20,000

• Mega-influencers: $20,000+  

The average cost on sponsorship for a YouTube video varies wildly (no surprise there). You should expect to pay in the range of a $10 - $100 CPM (cost per 1000 views). More specialized and niche channels will command a higher rate and dedicated videos (as compared to integrating your product into their planned content) will also command more. If locking in a total amount upfront then rates will be slightly lower as compared to paying for actual views. Typically creators will charge a rate and guarantee a minimum, if that minimum isn't met they can do a make up integration so that the partnership is win-win. YouTube influencers will also charge based on actual video views ($50 to $100 per 1,000 views) and those rates will be higher given the risk/ outcome.

How to Pay YouTube Influencers?

When it comes to paying social media influencers, the majority want to actually be paid. In other words, gifts and trips no longer cut the mustard for serious professionals. Therefore, you need to find the most efficient ways to pay influencers, especially if you plan on hiring many of them.

This is where the details are important. If you are taking on payments internally then each creator will need to be setup as a vendor in your financial system. You or your Finance team will need to collect tax forms and banking details, invoices, etc.

The challenge with managing internally across teams is making sure that creators are setup correctly and paid on time. This often leads to unexpected support costs helping YouTubers get setup as vendors and answering questions about the status of their (often late) payments.

Lumanu

If you care about the social media influencer experience and your relationships, Lumanu helps to simplify the entire process. Lumanu acts as a master vendor and manages onboarding, tax compliance and supports multiple payment methods, it’s a solution that makes paying influencers stress-free.

Lumanu saves marketing and finance teams hours from having to onboard new vendors, process and schedule payments, and manage invoices. Lumanu plugs directly into your existing AP/AR system where you can send invoices, streamline workflows, and manage all influencer payouts in a single spot.

‍Learn how DIME Beauty uses Lumanu to scale its payments to hundreds of social media influencers at once.

Schedule a demo with one of our team members today to learn if Lumanu is the right solution for your YouTube influencer marketing payment needs.

Python script - copy this script into a text doc and save it as youtube_search.py

import argparse

from googleapiclient.discovery import build

def search_videos(api_key, query, max_results=50):

# Build the YouTube service object

youtube = build('youtube', 'v3', developerKey=api_key)

# Make the request to search for videos

search_request = youtube.search().list(

part='snippet',

q=query,

type='video',

maxResults=max_results

)

search_response = search_request.execute()

videos = []

for item in search_response['items']:

video_id = item['id']['videoId']

video_title = item['snippet']['title']

video_description = item['snippet']['description']

# Make a request to get the video statistics

stats_request = youtube.videos().list(

part='statistics',

id=video_id

)

stats_response = stats_request.execute()

view_count = stats_response['items'][0]['statistics']['viewCount']

video = {

'title': video_title,

'videoId': video_id,

'description': video_description,

'viewCount': view_count

}

videos.append(video)

return videos

if __name__ == "__main__":

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description='Search for YouTube videos by keyword.')

parser.add_argument('--api_key', type=str, required=True, help='YouTube API key')

parser.add_argument('--query', type=str, required=True, help='Search query')

parser.add_argument('--max_results', type=int, default=10, help='Max results')

args = parser.parse_args()

videos = search_videos(args.api_key, args.query, args.max_results)

for i, video in enumerate(videos):

print(f"{i+1}. Title: {video['title']}")

print(f" Video ID: {video['videoId']}")

print(f" Description: {video['description']}")

print(f" View Count: {video['viewCount']}\n")